a visit from good friends (and an ER visit)

This was an eventful week. We unpacked and cleaned up some on Monday and met friends at the park on Tuesday. The kids started talking about what they wanted to be for Halloween and got into dress ups: We had a little excitement on Tuesday. Rob was at the church for a youth activity and I was upstairs vacuuming the kids' rooms right before bedtime. I had just finished with the vacuum, and we were all in Burke and Hewitt's room. While I was setting out clothes for the boys for the next morning (school started on Wednesday), Liv fell off of Burke's bed (maybe she was jumping? I didn't see) and I heard her scream/cry. When I turned around, she was between the bed and the window and I'm guessing that she hit her mouth on his bed frame/bit through her lip. Her mouth was full of blood and when I cleaned her up it was obvious that the hole would need stitches. I called Rob to tell him to come home and also called our friend Rob (a doctor) to come over while I waited for my Rob. (Dr.) Rob told me that we were probably best off going to the ER because they would need to make sure to line up the "vermilion border" of her lip just right (where the red part of the lip meets the skin).

Liv actually calmed down pretty quick and was pretty sleepy when we got to the ER (way past her bedtime at that point). She actually got super smiley and animated and posed for this photo when we got back to her hospital bed:

They put some sort of medication up her nose that made her "pleasantly stoned" as the ER doc put it and once she got very loopy and relaxed they wrapped her up, numbed her, and sewed it up. She fought and screamed, but calmed down fairly quickly after, although she was very irritable and couldn't sit still for the next couple of hours and didn't get to sleep until after midnight (she was still making up for lack of sleep on Thursday and took a five hour nap!). I was thrilled to get in and out of the ER in about two hours. Her stitches come out on Monday morning and I'm not looking forward to that. I hope that she will relax and that they won't need to wrap/restrain her to get them out (they had to do that to Hewitt to get stitches out once).

So the highlight of our week was a visit from some of our friends from Utah. Heather and I were roommates for two years in college (95-97) and then she married our friend Dar (Aaron) from our ward right after I left on my mission. When Rob and I moved to Riverton in 2005, we ended up building in Heather and Dar's ward! It was great to have such a great friend just one street over and a blessing to move into an area already having good friends. I didn't take one photo of Heather and me while she was here, so I had to pull out an oldie from 1996:

Pretty awesome hair, huh?

We had dinner and played some board games after the kids went to bed on Thursday and then hit the zoo on Friday morning (minus Hewitt and Burke). Here is one of Liv and Lindsey taken right before we saw a sweet giraffe gallop across the grass in the background to make sure that this ostrich didn't mess with his buddy. It was seriously cool. It was a warmer than average week, and the kids dared to swim both Friday and Saturday afternoon (although Hewitt didn't swim--too cold for him). The kids had a great time together.

It's become somewhat of a tradition to get a photo with guests jumping off of the wall:

After swimming we got ready for the annual Harvest Party at our church. We tend to have some last minute costume changes... Tosh decided to be a pirate:Liv did better wearing this cute bee costume than I thought she would--you never know what a two-year-old will do (I was losing my light in this photo):

Weeks ago Hewitt declared that he wanted to be a ghost, and Dar helped him design the face:

We moved all the kids outside for a group photo:

I couldn't resist posting this hilarious candid shot I caught of Tosh:

Thanks so much for the visit guys! Come back again!